


kübler-ross

by somanyfeelings



Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: F/F, major s3 finale spoilers just so ya know
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-21
Updated: 2015-06-21
Packaged: 2018-04-05 13:00:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4180785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somanyfeelings/pseuds/somanyfeelings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The five stages of grief. Cosima Niehaus, post 3.10.</p>
            </blockquote>





	kübler-ross

~~ _(denial)_ ~~

It comes in flashes, some cognizant, some not, and she does not remember being told until days later. She remembers stepping back inside, brow dipped, head lowered to hide the red tracks of unwanted tears beneath the thick frames of her glasses. She remembers putting on a smile, shaking her head. _No, yeah_ , she says. _Everything’s good. Just, y’know, a little chilly out._

And everything goes back to normal like eating dinner with a bunch of clones is normal at all; but it is, isn’t it? Somehow this is okay; somehow this is normal, these ragtag people in the clumsy whirlwind she calls her world. It has become her normal and the still-fresh taste of Delphine’s lips against her own (blood-free, finally, temporarily) calls for her, and she allows herself to think for the first time that maybe things will be alright.

Art is the one to get the call.

(She cannot help but picture what Beth’s face would’ve looked like, if only because she does not allow herself to picture her own.)

The first thing she says is a quiet _no_ , and then _Delphine_ , louder but somehow infinitely weaker. Her voice cracks on the second syllable. She cracks with it.

* * *

 

~~ _(anger)_ ~~

She cuts her hand on a shred of glass after knocking the cup off of the counter, and she cradles it to her chest, lets it bleed. (Thinks that it is only right for her to shed a little blood here, now, when Delphine has shed so much.)

She has always been rash, always been prone to anger. Always seen the flash of angry red, jealous green—for someone so intent on logic, rationality, she feels much too strongly, and she remembers all of it now, every single word.

_(Yeah, it showed. I just really don’t want you here. Get out. Get out.)_

_(I’m sorry.)_

Yet there is no outlet here: no easy flow of tears, for she has cried all she can, no words to yell, for her throat has long since begun to burn ragged, so she lashes, arms shooting haphazardly, yearning for contact, and she chokes back a sob as the glass breaks into her palm.

The blood pools into her uninjured hand, an ugly red against trembling pallor of her skin. She stares at it, stares until a knock on the door breaks her from whatever reverie holds her hands still, feet unmoving.

A voice—Felix—calls out for her. She doesn’t answer.

* * *

 

~~ _(bargaining)_ ~~

She doesn’t work for DYAD anymore, but in the frantic rush of recent days, they have not yet disabled her badge. She lets herself into the building, walks straight past the security desk.

No one looks twice, and her eyes narrow in something like frustration— _look at me_ , she wants to yell. _I’m not supposed to be here. Get your act together. Do something right._

_(For once.)_

She walks straight past her lab and up into the elevator, half expecting Delphine’s office to not be there, half expecting to see Leekie, Rachel sitting once more at that desk that was always too stark, too bleak to fit Delphine.

The office is there, untouched, unwatched. Empty, like she knows the parking lot must’ve been. She lets the door slide closed behind her and steps toward the desk, taps her fingers on the brim like she had seen Delphine do so many times in fits of boredom, thought. 

She leaves without being caught and goes back the next day, the day after that, hoping in some awful way that someone will stop her and pin her arms behind her back and demand answers that she cannot give. Hoping that someone will laugh, say, _Are you really that stupid?_ And she will answer _yes_ , _yes_ , because she has never felt so stupid and so stupidly in love.

* * *

 

~~ _(depression)_ ~~

Her cough comes back—a result of the marijuana, maybe, or potentially just time, inevitability. She wakes to a cloud of blood sprayed across the white of her pillow case, and she stops doing laundry after the fourth day, for the pink stain holds fast.

Scott calls once, twice, three times in one day and she doesn’t pick up a single one; she is not going back, not on someone else’s terms. This is her sickness, and she wears it with a discomfort that she tries, fails to attribute to choice.

She begins seeing red everywhere, and she cannot help but see bullet holes in every cut, death in every drop of blood from her lips, nose.

She orders in whatever food she eats, and as her appetite dwindles, so does her contact with the outside world.

Her shirts hang loose off of thinned shoulders, and she fists the hems of her sleeves in her palms and hugs her arms around her chest. She calls her parents for the first time in months, but she doesn’t say anything. Or at least anything real.

_(I’m still working on my dissertation. It’s going well. Maybe by the end of this year. Maybe next.)_

_(Probably never.)_

Somebody stops by almost every day. Knocks, usually. Leaves a note under the door until the build-up prevents it. Felix is more persistent than most, and it is in a fit of frustration that she opens the door one day. He sticks his foot immediately in the gap, braces one arm against the wood. She is not strong enough—not anymore—to force him back.

He simply watches her for a moment. Then he speaks: _you look like trash._

It is, surprisingly, not surprisingly at all, the perfect thing to say.

She responds with a sob.

* * *

 

~~ _(acceptance)_ ~~

She does not know what to expect when she knocks on the door. A dismissal seems reasonable. Screaming, plausible. Whatever it is her mind creates is not what happens: Shay stops short, eyes wide with an odd mix of doubt and faith, and collides with her suddenly, arms around waist, then moving, touching, bunching in ponytailed locks. Searching for a sign of reality here.

She makes it inside a minute later and stands with uncharacteristically quiet posture—she is all nerves, all unwilling hope so desperately close to bubbling over.

But she wants this. Wants life.

Her throat swallows involuntarily, and her gaze dances about, cataloging every difference, every cranny, everything that isn’t Shay, for she cannot handle that. Not yet.

But Shay waits; Shay stands a foot or so away, close enough to touch, far enough to avoid, and begins to speak in a whisper so quiet it hardly reaches her ears. _I’m so sorry. Delphine— She came to me. Apologized. Told me it was alright for you to tell me everything. If— If you want to._

( _If you need to.)_

She recognizes this place still, she finds, even through all the changes, through the new sofa and different curtains. She recognizes it though she herself is different, and she nods once, slowly, and looks up.

_Okay_.

She smiles, and though the motion does not reach her eyes, it quirks the corners of her lips, and grows wider, wider, and she finds herself helpless to stop it.

_It’s, uh— It’s kind of a long story._

(But she has time.)

 

**Author's Note:**

> can you tell the finale killed me? because it did. ~~and delphine's not dead~~


End file.
